Ad Astra

I'm back! I've still been watching movies, but lost a little steam with the blog. I was putting more effort into than I had time for. Since my Godzilla: King of Monsters post, I've watched Men in Black: International (which I completed but didn't post), Spider-man: Far from Home, Hobbs & Shaw, Angel has Fallen (which I published, but again didn't post), and Rambo: Last Blood. I'm going to skip any posts though. It was good to have some time off and ... got a busy season coming up. Joker is next week and we've got Terminator: Dark Fate and Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker coming up this year as well as some others that look fun. Pretty exciting! Now, on to Ad Astra.

Executive Summary:

Reasons to go see it: 1) great acting (Brad Pitt and Tommy Lee Jones), 2) some beautiful cinematography, and 3) some interesting edits that were really well done.

Reasons not to see it: 1) the story was not that great and the ending not that satisfying, 2) some of the narrative techniques took the punch out of the (honestly pretty dark) story, and 3) if I hear the theme music one more time ...

Going in: I hope it will be a thought provoking sci-fi film. I expect it'll have some good points but will probably be strong in the acting department while being a little dry in the story department. I went on what 10/1 by myself.

Popcorn: 6.5/10. It wasn't a horrible movie but there's no way I would buy it. I know some people love this kind of movie, but it is not my cup of tea. It's the first movie in a long time that I've been on the definite "no". There wasn't any sort of emotional punch for me. It was kind of meh.

Art: 7/10. Great acting, awesome photography, but annoying music and a bland story.

Acting: 6/6. I was watching Brad Pitt and noticed he had some really great moments. Then Tommy Lee Jones came on and blew Pitt out of the water. Plenty of emotion.

Music: 2/4. The music was notable. And repetitive. And repetitive. And repetitive. And ... I didn't want to hear it anymore. It was either the same score or the same theme done slightly different. It did play well against the tense parts, but the in-between killed me.

Filming: 4/4. This was a beautiful movie. The way they portrayed space, the lighting - all except one scene I felt awed. In that particular scene, it should have been shot in a well lit area, but somehow there was a lot of noise in it - kind of that high-ISO feel.

Art Dept: 3/4. Costuming was done pretty well. Hair was great. I didn't see a lot of detail in the sets, but they didn't detract from the film either.

Editing: 4/4. There were two scenes that stuck out for me in the film where the editing mirrored the emotion of the character and it was something well done. That's all I want to say without getting into spoiler country.

Story: 4/8. The characters well done. The narration they used I felt could have been left out and it would have impacted the story more. It just felt unnecessary. There were some ups and downs, but more downs. Pacing was pretty good. But it fundamentally did not connect with me. I didn't feel like I was in a character journey, but more like I was part of the revelation he had at the end. It wasn't horrible, but it wasn't great either.

Directing: 3/6. It was consistent and put together well. It just didn't click with me.

Production: 2/4. I didn't see the trailer but this had more of a small screen feel for me. I'm not sure I needed to see it in theaters.